Clinic medicine-Africa style

The electricity was out last night for a long time so I wasn't able to email, blog etc. Thank you Sandy for my cool flashlight, it saved the day! Jim and I made the kids spaghetti for dinner, they loved it. They call their bellies "pasta bellies" so they don't feel so bad that they're so big. I had my meeting with Sr. Mary, the new head of Nyumnbani. She took over for Fr. Dag, after he died. The meeiting went great, she was very supportive of my project. She said she wanted to tell me how proud Fr. D'ag was of me and how proud to have Nyumbani associated with Fulbright. she told me anything I wanted or needed she would try to provide, she didn't even freak out about teaching condom use. I know Fr. D'ag was still helping me out here. I miss him a lot. still, that was the last hurdle, so Melissa we're a go for April! That's when I should be ready to start with the first classes.
today I went and worked at the Embula Bula clinic. I matatued part way, then Kate and Dr. George picked me up. Another amazing day. We saw over 70 babies. The Kenyan nurse, susan, and the "medical Assistant" and I would be in the room, there was an exam table against one wall, one additional little table, and the 3 of us would sit at a bigger table with a baby scale on it. I would call the patients in, which would cause all sorts of hilarity in the waiting room as I butchered their names, then the moms would line up their babieson the exam table, strip them down, bring thenm over to me where I would weigh them, figure out what vaccines they needed, and mark their imm cards which are like their bibles, they go with them everywhere. Then Susan the Kenyan nurse would draw up the vaccines, hand them to me ansd say baby 1,3,5, oral polio, measles etc. and I would go down the line injecting kids. Of course it would be very quiet until I started, first they would scream because I was mizungo (white person) then they would realize I was mizungo with a needle!!!! There would be a whole room of screaming babies!
Lelizabeth There's a whole bunch of kenyan kids who now hate mizungos! Then the moms would wrap them all up again and we would call in the next 5. Susan was amazing, she knew who everyone was, what they needed etc. Towards the end I was getting better, but I couldn't figure out who needed what by their age because they so often didn't look their age. I have never injected so many tiny creatures. We also gave out mousquito nets. Kate brought Dr. George and I lunch, see I'm eating! a coke and a sandwich which we shoved down, while we compared notes. Then Susan and I went and did the rest of the kids and adults who were there because they were sick, think of it as Urgent Care on crack. She wrote down their symptoms, I did the exams, she wrote the scripts. I told her that in the states only the docs write scripts, she said here there's not enough docs, nurses do it. All in all, a great day, flew by, Melissa you are going to love that clinic. There is usually only the 2 nurses there, they were so grateful for our help and excited to hear about visiting docs.
Elizabeth figured out how to call me: 011-254-724-970-061.
Miss you all, Happy birthday Tim, Timmy be safe out there, xoxoxo to little boy.